Intermittent boot failure

[KenV]

As stated in another, unrelated, post, I recently replaced my P4B533 with a
P4P800E-Deluxe.

Prior to replacement, one of the problems I was having was that the computer
didn't cold boot about 20% of the time. This happened especially if I had
just turned it off recently, but could happen after several hours of being
off, as well. There was no obvious correlation with anything else I was
doing. I simply had to turn it off and turn it back on again, and always
booted eventually.

Now that I have the new board, it is doing the same thing on cold boot,
again, about 20% of the time. Everything, including the P4 CPU was
transferred to the new board, including the 2 hard drives, ATI Radeon 7500
AGP video card, Audigy 1 card, WinTV PVR card, an old Lucent faxmodem card,
and the memory chips, 2 500mb Crucial DDRs. All of these appear to be
working well once the computer is running.

I assume, therefore, that the problem lies either in the memory or in one of
the cards, not in the seating of the cards or chips, per se.

How do I go about troubleshooting this problem easily? Do I have to take one
card at a time out? Is one of these components a frequent cause of this type
of intermittent boot failure? I know it isn't Windows, because not even the
BIOS screen appears when this happens.

Thanks.

Ken

 

[Paul]

As stated in another, unrelated, post, I recently replaced my P4B533 with a
P4P800E-Deluxe.

Prior to replacement, one of the problems I was having was that the computer
didn't cold boot about 20% of the time. This happened especially if I had
just turned it off recently, but could happen after several hours of being
off, as well. There was no obvious correlation with anything else I was
doing. I simply had to turn it off and turn it back on again, and always
booted eventually.

Now that I have the new board, it is doing the same thing on cold boot,
again, about 20% of the time. Everything, including the P4 CPU was
transferred to the new board, including the 2 hard drives, ATI Radeon 7500
AGP video card, Audigy 1 card, WinTV PVR card, an old Lucent faxmodem card,
and the memory chips, 2 500mb Crucial DDRs. All of these appear to be
working well once the computer is running.

I assume, therefore, that the problem lies either in the memory or in one of
the cards, not in the seating of the cards or chips, per se.

How do I go about troubleshooting this problem easily? Do I have to take one
card at a time out? Is one of these components a frequent cause of this type
of intermittent boot failure? I know it isn't Windows, because not even the
BIOS screen appears when this happens.

Thanks.

Ken

I notice the power supply is not on your list of suspects.

In the past, some of the Vcore regulators had "hiccup" mode
current limiting. That means, if the Vcore regulator detects
a fault, it will try once a second, to restore operation.
That was a good feature, capable of hiding bad transient
behavior in a power supply.

More modern regulator designs, are one-shot designs. If
a failure is detected, they latch off. The symptoms would
be, the computer switches on, but the BIOS will not POST.
All the fans will be spinning, the drive will spin up.
But, what has happened, is if the power supply is slow to
deliver the +12V at startup, the Vcore regulator will latch
off during the startup interval. The fact that it won't
retry, is why it fails to run. It can only be recovered by
switching off the power, only to repeat the symptoms again.

If you have an Antec supply, try another brand. Sometimes,
even a much older 250W power supply can be used for debugging,
as many of them will allow a system to start, when a modern,
more powerful one will not.

If changing the power supply doesn't help, the next step is
to remove as much optional hardware as possible. Then, add
components back one at a time.

You also have the luxury of the Vocal POST feature. Connect
amplified speakers to the Lineout audio connector on the
motherboard (even if you have added a sound card, the motherboard
connector is where you connect, to listen to Vocal POST).
If the error you hear on failures, is "System Failed CPU test",
then it could be the power supply that is doing it. Since your
system eventually runs, the processor is not defective.

HTH,
Paul

 

[KenV]

Paul,

Thanks, that does help me to get started.

I have a Raidmax 350W power supply--always gives good voltage readings,
although obviously on startup I don't know.

Anyway, I've connected the MB line-out jack to my stereo system line-in and
will listen for the error message on POST. Naturally, my last two cold boots
have worked so I don't know yet.

Ken

 

[KenV]

Paul,

I just got the answer---it failed to boot and the voice said, "System failed
CPU test". So, I guess it is the power supply, as you said.

I have the Raidmax 350W as noted below. Do you have any suggestions as to
what I should get to replace it for the P4P800E Deluxe pretty much fully
loaded, and soon a P4 2.8c processor with hyperthreading? A quiet power
supply fan would be nice...I don't think this one is particularly quiet.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Ken

 

[BC]

Paul,

I just got the answer---it failed to boot and the voice said, "System failed
CPU test". So, I guess it is the power supply, as you said.

I have the Raidmax 350W as noted below. Do you have any suggestions as to
what I should get to replace it for the P4P800E Deluxe pretty much fully
loaded, and soon a P4 2.8c processor with hyperthreading? A quiet power
supply fan would be nice...I don't think this one is particularly quiet.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Ken

Note: I is not as smart as Paul, but, there are good reviews here:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article28-page6.html

Start of article:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article28-page1.html

Seasonic does really well in all these tests. (I have a Seasonic 430
that was not quite powerful enough for an Asus p5WD2 with a 3.2G P4, 2G
of Ram, and three hard drives....had to get a PC Power and Cooling 510.)

PC Power and Cooling has a "configurator":

http://www.pcpowercooling.com/products/power_supplies/selector/

Their "quiet" power supplies are not priced too terribly high,
considering they have a three year warranty:

http://www.pcpowercooling.com/products/power_supplies/ultra-quiet/

HTH,

BC

 

[BC]

Paul,

I just got the answer---it failed to boot and the voice said, "System failed
CPU test". So, I guess it is the power supply, as you said.

I have the Raidmax 350W as noted below. Do you have any suggestions as to
what I should get to replace it for the P4P800E Deluxe pretty much fully
loaded, and soon a P4 2.8c processor with hyperthreading? A quiet power
supply fan would be nice...I don't think this one is particularly quiet.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Ken

Dear Ken,


I are not as smart as Paul, but, there are good reviews here of quiet
power supplies:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article28-page6.html

Start of article:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article28-page1.html

Seasonic does really well in all these tests. (I have a Seasonic 430
that was not quite powerful enough for an Asus p5WD2 with a 3.2G P4, 2G
of Ram, and three hard drives....had to get a PC Power and Cooling 510.)

PC Power and Cooling has a "configurator":

http://www.pcpowercooling.com/products/power_supplies/selector/

Their "quiet" power supplies are not priced too terribly high,
considering they have a three year warranty.

http://www.pcpowercooling.com/products/power_supplies/ultra-quiet/

HTH,

BC

 

[KenV]

Hi BC,

Thanks, that helps quite a bit.

I may have to see what the local retailer has because my PS is acting up and
I need to replace it soon.

Your comment about Paul reminds me of my college days when they used to say,
"It used to be I couldn't even spell engineer, and now I are one." Well, my
own daughter are an engineer now and she write in the tech journals.

Ken

 

[BC]

Your comment about Paul reminds me of my college days when they used to say,
"It used to be I couldn't even spell engineer, and now I are one." Well, my
own daughter are an engineer now and she write in the tech journals.

Ken

Dear Ken,

congrats! Sounds like you are perhaps a bit proud of her....

BC

 

[KenV]

Indeed!

Dear Ken,

congrats! Sounds like you are perhaps a bit proud of her....

BC